Just to note the obvious, this budget will throw the US back into a depression (well, ok, really you never left the depression, but you know what I mean), and contrary to all of Obama’s “jobs, jobs, jobs” talk, it will cost jobs. Also, as long as we’re at it, ignore the unemployment rate, it tells central bankers something useful (about the potential for a tight labor market), it tells you nothing useful, it’s a lie to you. Look at the percentage of the population unemployed, that cuts out all the bullshit, and it shows the US is still in a hole. Inflation may be officially around 2%, but that’s a lie too, Shadow stats shows it at almost 10%, which is what it would have been if they hadn’t changed the inflation measurements from how they were done in the eighties. So what you have, is stagflation – high unemployment combined with high inflation, and on top of that wages are flat even using 2% inflation, and in freefall if you use something closer to the real inflation rate.
Combined with the fact that virtually every other first world country is going into austerity, the fact that oil prices are through the roof, and that nothing is being done about any of these things, well, you can take off your shades, because the future’s so dim you need night-vision goggles.
Notorious P.A.T.
What about Obama’s “plan” to keep Medicare costs from rising at higher than GDP + 0.5 annually? Is that even remotely realistic? It looks like Fantasyland to me.
Meanwhile loyal Democratic voters are heaping praise on this speech for saying mean things about Paul Ryan’s plan and not cutting Medicare. Oh and he promised not to extend those tax cuts for the wealthy. He did that before but this time is different, I hear, because he used slightly stronger language. That’s our standard now, apparently: if a president doesn’t cut Medicare, he deserves our unwavering support even as he accedes to the Republican narrative of “fight deficit now!”
jeer9
I’m not sure why anyone takes a pathological liar seriously at this point. His goals and those of the Republicans are all but identical. Look for him to really amp up the inspirational rhetoric as he goes into campaign mode. What would be really fun (but appears unlikely) is a progresssive primary opponent who could hold his feet to the fire. Watching him dodge and weave defending his past performance would warm my cold angry heart.
Bolo
Link appears to be broken.
Mandos
Every time you say “I don’t believe in austerity”, a Confidence Fairy dies in agony.
Mandos
(The Confidence Fairies decided to Go Galt, but none of them are doctors, and they don’t have any health insurance.)
Celsius 233
At what point do we realize our rulers are bat shit crazy? At what point do we see/realize that fully 1/3 of U.S. citizens are disenfranchised? Will we ever regain our power as U.S. citizens against our own government?
When will U.S. citizens come face-to-face with their massive, collective, denial?
When is it not okay to wantonly violate international rules of law on war, torture, murder, treason, and just plain human decency?
When will we once again become a nation of laws; not a nation of men?
We’ve already fallen so far, the worst case scenario of crimes against citizens, will go down like a cool glass of chocolate milk.
They lie, steal, murder, and abuse with impunity and we do nothing.
Karma? Hmm…
Notorious P.A.T.
“At what point do we realize our rulers are bat shit crazy?”
Obama’s loyalists tell me that if he’s only 80% or 90% as bad as a Republican, then that’s good enough for them.
“When will U.S. citizens come face-to-face with their massive, collective, denial?”
That, I think, is the big question.
Notorious P.A.T.
“The Confidence Fairies decided to Go Galt, but none of them are doctors, and they don’t have any health insurance.”
Oh, the humanity! no, fairyanity? fairytude?
guest
“When will U.S. citizens come face-to-face with their massive, collective, denial?”
When it affects them directly and significantly. Otherwise it’s just abstract and everyone thinks that we are the most stable perfect country economically and politically that can be achieved realistically, so it will all work out for the best. And if you make them uncomfortable with the truth, they will look around the room to see if there is anyone else agreeing with you, and then just decide you must be crazy because all those people in DC and NY and on TV and in print just couldn’t be getting it so wrong.
Ovid
As you’ve pointed out before, Obama is all about compromise. He’s working so hard to bring Democrats and Republicans together that he just doesn’t seem to care that cooperation between “tax and spend” and “tax cut and spent” parties isn’t the way to go. The US is in serious trouble and I don’t see it getting better.
This is why I tell people to start looking for other countries. After a while, we need to stop our silly attachments to individual countries and get out into the world. Uruguay is actually fairly easy for most people to emigrate to, and there’s a secret back door into Europe if you’re willing to learn Czech.
Z
The economy is going to go down hard. It was never on steady footing to begin with despite obama and co’s. little victory dance for “stabilizing” it by backstopping wall street’s looting. Save Macy’s, save the country!
The economy is another reason why I suspect that obama is going to try to connive some scenario where he walks away with “dignity” … dignity to the deluded masses … after one term. Why the fuck would somebody want to be the person people call president during one of the worst stretches of american history … our worst economy maybe ever … and a period of such rampant institutionalized corruption. Does he want to sit on the throne … actually, it’s the joy of winning that would be most important to him … that badly for another 4 years that he is blind to what he will be presiding over? And you can’t convincingly play political victim for another term … that ain’t gonna play well that long … eventually more and more people are going to hold you accountable for their situation. And his bullshit is already pretty transparent to a lot of people; it won’t take too much to see through it when they’re looking for someone to blame.
Fuck that. He’ll find some way to weasel out. He’s way, way too intelligent to not see what’s coming down the tracks, and he’s certainly not that self-disinterested. He may be welcome in Davos after 4 more years of this shit, but not in any decent company … and he doesn’t want to lose his celebrity appeal.
It shouldn’t be too long before he gives the base another good kick in the balls probably for not being more grateful to him for saving Planned Parenthood.
Z
Lisa Simeone
In answer to Celsius 233’s questions, I don’t think they are going to wake up. Well, maybe when the entire house of cards comes crashing down, but I doubt it. Problem is when the economy tanks, more people are thrown out of work & home, and we enter another Great Depression, people will become demoralized and our security overlords will become emboldened. Civil liberties abuses will become even more egregious. I suppose people could rise up à la Egypt (or even à la US early 20th century), but I don’t see it happening. I think they’ll just bow their heads and take whatever shit is thrown at them.
Celsius 233
Lisa Simeone PERMALINK
April 14, 2011
In answer to Celsius 233′s questions,
========================
You know what? I agree, because that’s what I see.
We’ll see…..
jm
Z:
You’re overlooking the nature of power. Very, very few people, having obtained power, walk away from it willingly.
Morocco Bama
The U.S. is a nation of laws. Take this law, for example.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/01/21/us-usa-court-politics-idUSTRE60K3SK20100121
Or, the law that grants corporations legal status as persons.
In fact, it’s those laws that bind and shackle us. Screw the damn laws…..they’re rigged in favor of the Plutocrats.
Z
JM,
I haven’t overlooked it, but I can’t say that I relate to it or have ever felt it … or wanted to feel it … so I can’t properly gauge it. You could be right.
Z
nihil obstet
“When will U.S. citizens come face-to-face with their massive, collective, denial?”
Well, here it is, 150 years later, and lots of the Confederacy still hasn’t come face-to-face with the idea that maybe the Civil War might have been a mistake. It’s not that we make mistakes — it’s that others are evil and unfairly put us down.
Greg L
>>At what point do we realize our rulers are bat shit crazy? At what point do we see/realize that fully 1/3 of U.S. citizens are disenfranchised? Will we ever regain our power as U.S. citizens against our own government?<<
I don't believe our leaders are crazy. To be sure, they've been bought and paid for and just like any good employee looking for a promotion, they're going to do their job.
I have a theory. There's been a deliberate sort of stasis or gridlock that's been induced into the political system to prevent it from solving anything. The idea is to let neither political party achieve a clear win, but to keep them locked in a neck and neck race over bullshit. The first thing this set up accomplishes is to reduce the electorate as the position of increasing numbers of people is not to bother participating. A disengaged and uninformed citizenry is key to this setup. The second thing it does is force decisions in response to any crisis outside of the political system due to its dysfunction—a dysfunction that's really been bought and paid for. That means that the decisions will fall to the banking interests and we've already seen this with QE as well as austerity measures that have been imposed around the globe. That will also continue in response to the US fiscal crisis. That is why we're seeing the spectacle of the parties fighting over the 1% that they're proposing to cut from the US budget. For the uninformed sheeple, that may play well, but it's clear that the political system has been given a directive of "hands off" on significant issues revolving around the economy, fiscal issues and foreign policies. It's real clear to me that there are others behind the scene that are calling the shots on this and the decision making structure that supports this is global in nature.
As far as the US is concerned, austerity will be coming soon enough, but it will be imposed just as it was done in Ireland, Greece and Portugal.
Morocco Bama
Well, here it is, 150 years later, and lots of the Confederacy still hasn’t come face-to-face with the idea that maybe the Civil War might have been a mistake.
Neither side had the moral high road in that endeavor. The North’s aggression was no more noble than the South’s when you consider Lincoln’s intentions. Considering where we are now, does anyone consider that strengthening the Union, meaning strengthening the Power of the Federal, thus allowing Financiers and Industrialists substantial leverage of the whole of North America, was a good thing? And don’t give me that crap that the Civil War was about abolishing slavery because Lincoln was such a Humanitarian. That’s hogwash.
Atlanta Whore
You are hogwashed.
The civil war was about humans keeping other humans as chattel.
The South Carolina declaration of succession clearly states that the several states’ unwillingness to go along with that crap is why it was breaking the union. What came next was natural and karmic.
To think otherwise is sheer idiocy.
Sherman should have turned 180 at the sea and continued on to Texas.
tBoy
You know what’s coming next by the civil war/slavery deniers – that only a single digit percentages of people in the south owned slaves so it must have been about something else. The same logic that was used for the invasion of Iraq in these parts – very few people own or work for oil companies so the invasion of Iraq must have been about something else. And indeed a smorgasbord of choices was set out each more ridiculous than the one before.
Making stuff up.
Morocco Bama
The South’s reason was about keeping Slavery as an institution, and that’s why I said their were n o noble motivations on either side, but the North’s reasoning was not about ending slavery as an institution. Are you aware, whore, of how Lincoln felt about the slavery issue? He wasn’t even and Abolitionist, and the Abolitionists believed that whites and blacks should not coexist. Many, the majority, believed the slaves, once freed, should be repatriated to Africa, and indeed some were. Liberia, to be exact.
Yes, the Civil War ended with the emancipation of slaves, and that was a great thing, but didn’t start with that, at least not on the part of the North. Sadly, emancipating the slaves is about all the Republicans, who were the Progressives of that era if you could call them that, didn’t do much else for them after freeing them. They threw them to the wind, so to speak, and after Reconstruction failed miserably, the Dems instituted slavery de facto with the Jim Crow laws.
Celsius 233
Grace Lee Boggs on Democracy Now;
http://www.democracynow.org/
Celsius 233
^ Sorry; Ms. Boggs is at about 35 min into the broadcast; but the whole show is worthwhile, IMO.
Celsius 233
nihil obstet PERMALINK
April 14, 2011
“When will U.S. citizens come face-to-face with their massive, collective, denial?”
Well, here it is, 150 years later, and lots of the Confederacy still hasn’t come face-to-face with the idea that maybe the Civil War might have been a mistake. It’s not that we make mistakes — it’s that others are evil and unfairly put us down.
==============================================
We are a curious lot. We rarely solve problems; so the train of garbage just grows and grows. Hell, the civil war is only one small part of our fractured, violent, and greedy past. That it is still an issue is a sign of much bigger problems; you know, the ones that will destroy us. Along with that it seems we need to drag the entire world down with us.
Karma’s a bitch…
KLCarten
The whole civil war/slavery issue was for the most part not the biggest reason. It was like now, all about money and who was gonna get the bigger portion. The railroad was suppose to be more evenly divided than it ending up being. The northern big industrialists really didn’t give two toots to cheap labor vs free labor. For the most part southerns knew that slavery was dieing, it was nearly dead until the Cotton Gin revived it where slaves were necessary. Not that I agree with slavery by any means, but slavery was not much of an issue with our forefathers, one being, if your wealthy (landed)white man, it didn’t matter, and for southerners it was free labor, and a status symbol of your wealth, and more or less a way of life. The ideal of slavery with our forefathers figured it wouldn’t last anymore than 20 years. As the north became more industrial and less rural, factories were the way to earn money, and in some cases true wealth. The south being the world’s greatest cheap cotton source, continued with slaves as cheap labor. Right before the civil war, because of cotton and the demand for American cotton, prices for slavers were very expensive and only the truly wealthy could now afford to purchase men to work in the field. One of my history professors, was a expert on civil war and slaves. The man was a tough professor and I enjoyed his classes, he was the dean of history, and I for one was never really that interested in the civil war. As someone that was a descendant from a family of slaves, he really brought the issues home on how it was never really much about the social issue, it was all about the economics that brought the civil war. Of course whoever wins can write or rewrite history from their point of view. This professor, stressed to us that slavery was a dieing issue, and it would have died out eventually. Also on a side note that if honest Abe wasn’t killed that we wouldn’t have had the mess we ended up having, well to a certain extent, that civil rights wouldn’t have been needed, that it would have happened decades sooner. Who can say.
Now that I got that off my chest, I don’t think a lot of Americans will do anything, until they are starving. It would have to be like the Great Depression. In this country, we were unionizing and it was bloody especially in the late 20’s and 30’s. Will the American worker finally fight when they no longer have the right to collective bargaining? I know in my state, they are trying to break the biggest union in this state, the teachers union. Tennessee is a right to work state, which sucks anyway, but they are nuts here. I asked my mom in law, what the reaction was at school, she works for a state college. She said that since the state stopped contracts with all employees last year, that everyone is keeping their head down. She said it’s like they hope they don’t get noticed. No one complains at work and if anything is said they shut up quick. My mom in law has less than 2 years left before she retires, and she is counting down the time. She has been going rounds with her boss, the staff at the library is down four employees and they are expecting them to fill in because they will not be replacing the workers. Not a happy situation, everyone is stressed, and she said between the time she has built up, she may get the hell out of there as soon as she qualifies for medicare. So, if things get really bad she has until Nov. of this year, which she mentions to her boss, when things get too bad. I worked union and most of the people here would stab you in the back if it meant that they could either get a raise or make sure they didn’t get fired. I salted on many jobs, and, once I figured out who the suck up was, I would start organizing. Loved doing it, but the job could be dangerous at times and always had to keep an eye on my back.
Mandos
That was the best you could expect at that moment in history, unless you believe that moral attitudes do not develop historically.
Yes, it was in fact the least evil.
kirkland
Why is it people expected President Obama to reverse multiple crises, 35+ years in the making, in less than 3 years time? Why blame the guy who at least tries to help?
The real problem is people who sit on their butt and talk about how corrupt things are all while either not voting, or voting for rapacious politicians who don’t give a darn about people who can’t be bothered to vote.
If you are too scarred and/or lazy, to organize and agitate for a more rational and responsive government, then just say so. Don’t hide behind President Obama for the mess you and your parents and grandparents allowed to happen.
We’ve got people using American technology to organize and rise up and are achieving results, yet here we are complaining what Obama hadn’t done for us! It takes more than one person to fight entrenched interests people. That he’s been able to get anything done while dodging backstabbing supporters and murderous opposition is truly a wonder.
Celsius 233
kirkland PERMALINK
April 15, 2011
Why is it people expected President Obama to reverse multiple crises, 35+ years in the making, in less than 3 years time? Why blame the guy who at least tries to help?
======================================
Curious answer/defense of the indefensible, IMO. While I agree Obama has a huge trail of garbage he can’t possibly solve in 8 years much less 4; it’s been my observation he is adding to the pile of rubbish, not dealing with it; any of it from the GWB debacle.
Everything GWB gained Obama has institutionalized. Guantanamo, torture, quadrupled the drone strikes, gave the banksters everything including the kitchen sink, and has supported increasing illegal government scrutiny of U.S. citizens.
Can you kindly point to where and how he has helped?
ks
“Why is it people expected President Obama to reverse multiple crises, 35+ years in the making, in less than 3 years time? Why blame the guy who at least tries to help?…blah…blah..blah…”
Wow…I can’t believe some people STILL using that line? Really?….
Douglas McElroy
This question is about Ian’s reference to Shadowstats. Another blogger I read (and one Ian has blogrolled), Bonddad, has no use for Shadowstats. I really respect both Ian and Bonddad for being fact-based and analytical. They are two of the few blogs I read regularly (I’ve been reading both for close to a decade now). So, I’d love to know why Ian thinks Shadowstats is credible given Bonddad’s critiques. Bonddad won’t even let people who believe Shadowstats is legit comment on his blog, which would presumably rule out Ian.
I AM NOT trying to troll. I’m trying to reconcile a radically divergent viewpoint between two bloggers I respect and rely upon. This particular divergence actually has a significant impact on how one understands our current economic situation. Unfortunately I don’t feel qualified to sort through the critique knowledgeably myself. From what I can get, it’s partly about bond rates, partly about arguing for the legitimacy of the hedonic adjustments, and partly an appeal to authority – ‘where are the papers’. The later argument strikes me as ironic from a blogger, even an educated/informed one… Plenty of educated professionals missed the housing collapse we just had, but Bonddad was right there making noise about it, so this seems inconsistent. The other arguments are where I don’t feel like I can judge adequately…
Bonddad’s rules about commenting don’t invite me asking on his site (see here: http://bonddad.blogspot.com/2010/01/no-really-there-are-rules.html)…so I am asking here.
Here’s a link to various posts that reference shadowstats on the bonddad blog. The first one links to a ‘debunking’, that seems to be primarily aimed at the hedonics issue. The Jan 2010 post is Bonddad’s own ‘debunking’.
http://bonddad.blogspot.com/search?q=shadowstats
Thanks,
-Doug
Z
KS,
I think it says a lot that hardly anyone responds to it. Why should we? If the person still supports obama that fervently … and blindly … after all the broken promises, after all the duplicity, after all the deceptions, then he’s/she’s hopelessly in love and it’s probably best to just let them remain suspended in their deluded state as they drift out into the sea of vacuity.
Note: 80% of “liberal” democrats still back obama. I find that absolutely disheartening … and shocking. My prediction that obama will piss off the base until they get so disgusted with him that he can use that as cover to ease his way out the oval office door to cash out on his servility to the plutocrats assumes that he can actually alienate them enough with his policies to achieve that. It looks like a lot of “liberals'”self-love is extraordinarily robust and they won’t give up on their ego enriching feelings of moral superiority they enjoy for voting in a half-black man no matter what the hell he does. He’s caught between his self-interests and their self-love … how ironic for a narcissist.
Z
Ian Welsh
Shadowstats has issues, I don’t think they’re as severe as Bonddad says. The truth is that we don’t know what inflation is (the deeper truth is that there is no one inflation number). Shadowstats just gives another possible #. I am, however, convinced that the headline inflation # is Bullshit. And I have real issues with the way the BLS uses hedonics. I’ve read their papers on why they think it’s justified, but I don’t entirely buy them (the fact that everyone uses them doesn’t mean anything to me, everyone in power is wrong about a lot of things). Back in the day Oldman did some research on it, and he definitely thought hedonics had some issues.
Ian Welsh
Obama’s speech is about how he still wants to radically cut the deficit. The catfood comission is now the leftmost pole of the debate. This is good? This the ratchet effect in operation, what is defined as possible has been ratcheted massively right, with Obama’s position the leftmost one.
anon2525
Obama’s speech is about how he still wants to radically cut the deficit.
Correction: It is about how he wants to cut programs that do not provide profits to private companies.
Cutting the deficit is bad? Imagine if he argued that because medical services have been increasing much faster than the rest of the economy, he is going to propose a wholesale restructuring of how we pay for medical services and conduct research into medicines and medical procedures in order to bring the U.S. economy into line with the average OECD country’s cost, and that this was expected to reduce the cost to the u.s. economy (and Medicaid&Medicare) by over $1 trillion per year.
Imagine if he argued that the foreign policy of the u.s. was wrong (immoral and illegal) and counterproductive and that he was going to propose the end of the u.s. military occupations and operations and radically reduce the size of the military and spy agencies, including the ending of contracts to mercenaries and weapons makers.
Both of these proposals would reduce the deficit and reduce the profits of private companies that benefit from the current policies (the “wars” continue for more than a decade now because they are business enterprises). They would also cause lots of people to lose their wasteful, unproductive, and immoral jobs, increasing unemployment and depressing the GDP.
But until these jobs and these sectors of the economy are reduced and eliminated, they will continue to be part of the political support to keep the wrong, wasteful, fiscally irresponsible policies in place. They will continue to be part of the political opposition that prevents the right policies from being put in place.
Cutting the deficit would be “bad” from the macroeconomic principle that Effective Demand needs to be increased (and none of the duopoly’s policies are aimed at increasing effective demand). But it would not be bad from the perspective getting rid of overpriced labor and private profits being spent on wasteful, destructive, and immoral activities.
kirkland
Personal attack may make some feel good, but it doesn’t change the fact that things were screwed-up long before President Obama took office.
If you disagree, then say so and cite examples. Don’t hide behind snide comments.
I think we have people who were either unaware that these problems existed, or didn’t care until those problems came into their lives. How else do you explain continuing to vote for the same people.
President Obama is not the messiah and people should stop looking to D.C. for corrective action. Let’s stop with the talking points from either party and start organizing, running for office, and supporting candidates who are better than what we have in office now.
Americans have become afraid to revolt. We have settled for becoming keyboard warriors and fighting each other while entrenched interests continue to take us all down the wrong path. A path that was started decades ago.
Ian Welsh
Yes, Anon, but we both know that’s not what he’s suggesting.
KS: I have been blogging since 2003. I wrote about the problems Obama inherited (and then made worse) long before he was elected. I explained exactly why his stimulus wouldn’t work well enough when it was proposed, I explained why he would lose the House long before he did, etc.. Google it if you want, I don’t intend to waste my time. Now your genius president is going to make things even worse with his disastrous austerity budget.
It is not enough to say “Obama inherited problems.” Who cares. The question is whether he’s doing what it takes to fix those problems. He’s not. This is not grade inflation Ivy League, you don’t get a B+ for saying you tried real hard.
If Obama wants liberal support, let him do liberal things.
Notorious P.A.T.
“Obama inherited problems”
Look at all the problems Obama inherited and you’ll see why it’s not fair to blame him: the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the escalation in Afghanistan, the austerity movement in our government, Wall Street tools like Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke in key positions of power, an unpopular health care reform law…
Oh, wait.
Z
Kirkland,
obama definitely walked into a terrible situation … which he did willfully and promised to substantially change … and he made things worse by further enriching and empowering the same corrupt power structure of this country that fucked things up. He serves them, not us.
Here’s 10 examples off the top of my head (cause I could go on for an hour … easily):
1. selling out on the FISA bill (pre-presidency) that he promised he wouldn’t vote in favor of.
2. appointing people that are well-known to take care of the corrupt and powerful’s interests:
a. emanuel
b. summers
c. geithner
d. re-appointed bernanke
e. daley
f.. emmelt
3. redefined leaving iraq as leaving 50K “support” personnel there
4. not investigating one goddamn thing that the criminals in the previous administration did
5. going hard after whistle blowers that exposed corrupt and criminal actions of the government
5. more cowardly drone attacks than any other president
6. claiming the right to kill u.s. citizens at his almighty whim
7. after presenting his stimulus, his for-show stimulus, that had more money for the states and less tax cuts, having his henchman emanuel instruct cooper and the blue dogs to vote against it so that they could strip out money for the very needy states … and their needy poor and middle class citizens … so that he could compromise and take away that money for the states and give it out to big businesses in the form of tax cuts
8. after claiming that he would do all he could to stop the aig bonuses, shooting down an opportunity to get them back by taxing them
9. not one prosecution of the major players on wall street even though sarbanes-oxley gives the sec, fbi and doj an easy opportunity to do so for them signing off on their blatantly falsified financial statements, among many other criminal actions they perpetrated on their way to immorally impoverishing hundreds of millions of people around the globe
10. not fighting for cramdown
11. not lifting a finger for efca
12. not closing gitmo
13. the broken promises on the health care bailout bill debacle (negotiated drug costs for medicare, imported drugs, out in the open negotiations, public option, no mandate)
14. instead coming up with something, in typical obama fashion, that further empowered the corporate interests and hailing a bill that forces us under the gun of the irs to buy health insurance from private companies with no cost controls as health care for all.
15. the torturing of Bradley Manning
Z
Celsius 233
Z PERMALINK
April 16, 2011
Kirkland,
obama definitely walked into a terrible situation … which he did willfully and promised to substantially change … and he made things worse by further enriching and empowering the same corrupt power structure of this country that fucked things up. He serves them, not us.
Here’s 10 examples off the top of my head (cause I could go on for an hour … easily):
============================
Well, nice start (list) and of it all #15 probably says the most…
marku
Z: Bravo, and I bet you didn’t even break into a sweat.
Hedonics: It’s another one-way pollyanna adjustment. It adjusts because the quality of items always goes up (computer horsepower, more features in cars etc). Except it doesn’t always. I have a Western Electric pushbbutton phone that will still be standing alongside the cockroaches and Keith Richards after the apocalypse. Today you think a phone will still be working in ten years, let alone 30? I bet we’ve been through 5 or 6 RF phones in the last 10 years. I had a heating coil go out in a 3 year old oven, the repair guy says it happens all the time. Never once happened as I was growing up. Lots of folks have 20-30 year old beer fridges out in the garage. How likely do you think it is that a modern fridge will run half that long?
Do you think they ever include a negative hedonic adjustment for the increasing shittyness and unrepairability of modern goods? HAH!
So Shadowstats is bunk? I think “core” inflation is bunk. Strip out the “volatile” food and energy even though on a 10 year chart they have risen steadily? Let’s split the difference, “Core” says 1.5%, Shadow says 10. Avg is 5.75%. I can buy that number.
anon2525
16. Repeatedly breaking campaign promises, always in the direction of favoring his socioeconomic class, and neglecting to make a public argument for why those actions were needed, also known as lying.
Example: Not reversing the Bush/Cheney tax cut in January 2009 and then adopting them as his own (adding to them) in Dec. 2010 after campaigning against them in 2008 and before Nov. 2010.
This is continued in his latest speech, which has progressive elements. This is the third campaign that he has done this (2008, 2010, and now leading up to 2012). After the two previous bouts of lying, people have had the experience and should well know that what obama says does not matter–it is what he does: laws signed, people appointed, policies advanced and carried out.
ks
Ian,
“KS: I have been blogging since 2003. I wrote about the problems Obama inherited (and then made worse) long before he was elected. I explained exactly why his stimulus wouldn’t work well enough when it was proposed, I explained why he would lose the House long before he did, etc.. Google it if you want, I don’t intend to waste my time. Now your genius president is going to make things even worse with his disastrous austerity budget.”
I think you meant to respond to Kirkland not me?